The Roman alliance of Greens, SPD, FDP and Volt has presented a climate protection package that is intended to help make Hesse's largest city climate-neutral by 2035.

The city administration aims to achieve this goal as early as 2030.

Treasurer Bastian Bergerhoff (Die Grünen) recently announced that he would invest 245 million euros in climate protection and programs to adapt to the increasingly hot and drier summers over the next four years.

Mechthild Harting

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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"Frankfurt can protect the climate," said the leaders of the Greens, Tina Zapf-Rodriguez and Dimitrios Bakakis.

In consultation with their coalition partners, they emphasized that the overall package would initiate a "climate policy awakening".

The central role falls to Rosemarie Heilig, Head of the Environment Department, whose field of work in the new city government has been expanded to include climate protection.

The experienced Greens politician takes on the task of “leading the way of driving forward the cross-departmental and cross-sectoral process to achieve the goals”.

To this end, Heilig will set up an independent climate department, which will be made up of the energy department and the coordination office for climate adaptation in the environmental agency.

The task of the department will be to develop a new climate protection plan that specifically defines how and where greenhouse gas emissions are to be reduced in order to achieve the 2035 target.

First of all, this applies to the municipal properties themselves, whose importance for climate protection should not be underestimated in view of the size of the real estate portfolio.

New information and advice center

With a new information and advice center, the organization of which has not yet been determined, the city also wants to approach citizens and companies.

This is intended to promote urgently needed energy-related renovations of buildings, the installation of photovoltaic systems, the switch to climate-friendly heating systems, but also energy-efficient construction and energy efficiency in companies as well as saving electricity in households.

The new "Service Point" is intended to be an intermediary for the numerous funding programs from the city, state, federal government, the EU and other actors.

The climate protection package now presented states that the advice center acts as a municipal energy and climate protection agency and thus plays a central role in achieving climate protection goals in Frankfurt.

An independent expert advisory board is to accompany the work of the city.

A public donation portal, which previously operated under the term climate fund, is intended to offer citizens and companies the opportunity to participate in the financing of climate protection projects.

In this way, projects should be made possible for which public funds are currently not sufficient.

An ambitious goal

The package contains a total of 19 basic resolutions for municipal climate protection, which the parliamentary groups have agreed to.

This includes the requirement to start the new climate protection projects by the summer in order to be able to keep to the schedule.

With all investment projects, such as the planned new construction of the municipal theater, the further development of the zoo and the construction of the sports facility, "particular attention should be paid to energy-efficient planning and execution".

Annually, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are to be balanced and the city's energy and climate protection management are to be independently checked and certified.

In addition, Frankfurt wants to learn from other cities and their climate protection offensives.

In 2012, the "100 percent climate protection master plan" came into force in Frankfurt, which contained the goal of making the city climate-neutral by 2050.

Energy consumption should be halved, with the rest coming from renewable sources.

Experts confirmed the feasibility.

In fact, the city was able to reduce CO2 emissions compared to 1990, but only marginally.

Eleven tons of greenhouse gases are currently produced per capita and year;

by 2035, this value would have to drop to well below one ton in order to meet the new target.

Climate neutrality by 2035 "is a very ambitious goal," says the justification for the overall package now presented.

It can only be achieved through a “very large and joint effort” by city politicians, city administration, companies and private households.